Coronation recipe

Your editorial (In praise of... coronation chicken, 5 June) was wrong to say the dish "was originally served at HM's coronation 1953 lunch" and that it was served with a cinnamon and curry powder mayonnaise. The great classic Constance Spry Cookbook, by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, the directors of the Cordon Bleu and Winkfield schools, and first published in 1956, details how they and their students were asked to plan and serve "a luncheon for the representatives of other countries invited by Her Majesty ... on the occasion of her coronation. It was to be held in the Great Hall of Westminster School." With 350 guests and limited cooking facilities, all courses had to be cold except for soup and coffee. No mention was made of the Queen attending; presumably she was feasting in Buckingham Palace. The sauce recipe for coronation chicken (or Poulet Reine Elizabeth to give it the title of the day) does not contain cinnamon – just one dessertspoon of curry powder. Ms Spry says: "I doubt whether many of the 300-odd guests ... detected this ingredient in a chicken dish distinguished mainly by a delicate and nut-like flavour in the sauce." Quite.Roz DennyFittleworth, West Sussex